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Shinobu Maehara
Shinobu Maehara is an extremely shy young girl, though she does develop more confidence as the story progresses. She is age 12 at the start of the story, and has short dark blue hair, with one strand of hair subtly sticking out. In the Anime she first appears in episode 1 as a crying girl that Keitaro draws a picture of with her smiling but later he runs off leaving the book with Shinobu after she sees the picture. She is later introduced in episode 2 where we learn that her parents are divorcing and she is expected to leave town with one of them, but she prefers to become a resident at the Hinata apartments. In the manga she is already a resident at the apartments when Keitaro arrives there. She is in seventh grade at school, but because of her shyness she does not know her fellow pupils well. In the anime even on the eve of her intended departure she hadn't told them she was leaving. Yet later on she will gain more friends from her class as seen in episode two. She has incredible culinary skills, possibly learned from her mother who had run a restaurant, or possibly she is just naturally adept. She consistently downplays her ability, but is pleased when her cooking is praised by the Hinata residents - especially when Keitaro says "My life would sure be a lot nicer if I could look forward to eating great food like this every day". She has a tendency to sometimes put clothes that were supposed to be washed in the pot, and food ingredients in the washing machine (called "wash curry"), although she has only been shown doing this twice. She develops a crush on Keitaro when he helps her with her studies, but feels betrayed by him when she learns he has misled her about being a Tokyo University student. Amends are made when Keitaro discovers her birthday is coming up, and the residents hold a surprise party. Her birthday is on November 15th. Shinobu was apparently designed not to be cute, but the idea failed and her incredible non-cuteness instead made her cute in her own way. She handles alcohol very badly, she once accidentally drank Keitaro's white wine and instantly got drunk on merely half a glass. Appearance In the anime, she has short blue hair, whereas in the manga it is clearly depicted as being black. At one point in volume 9, she tells Keitaro of her desire to possibly dye her hair so as to make it "not so black". In the epilogue of volume 14, an older Shinobu is shown to have grown her hair past her shoulders. Plot Manga In the manga, Shinobu is introduced in volume one as an emotionally frail junior high school girl living at the Hinata Apartments on account of her parents' troubled marriage. At the earliest stage, when Keitaro Urashima arrives at the Apartments, she is very quiet and extremely shy, but immediately has something of a crush on her new apartment manager after he tells her she's strong and that she can believe in herself. It develops into a full-fledged infatuation as the series progresses, and her confidence gradually builds until she eventually becomes openly jealous of his relationship with Naru Narusegawa by the final volume. In the epilogue in volume 14, set four years after the end of the series proper, a 19-year-old Shinobu has grown out her hair, become more mature and is now far from the shy girl she once was, but she still persists to crush on Keitaro even as he walks down the aisle with bride Naru. Anime The primary difference in Shinobu's character in the anime from the manga is, rather than being a Hinata House resident from the outset, she is initially seen crying quietly by Keitaro, who draws a flattering sketch of her that is misinterpreted as mocking when she accidentally sees it. She finds her way to the Apartments to return him his sketchbook, against the wishes of her mother, who initially forbids her from being there because of her view that it is filled with "immoral girls". Naru and Mitsune Konno cause a commotion over the book when they take a peek at some of the racier drawings inside, making Shinobu cry and run away. She eventually returns to the Apartments to escape the tension surrounding her parents' tumultuous divorce, and tells them that she wants to stay as the Hinata House cook to earn her keep. Character Design Shinobu was the character who changed the most during the Design stage, and her appearance was changed several times up until just before the first release. Her being in 7th grade, yet living alone and good at cooking was decided early on, but she was initially supposed to hate Keitaro up until around the middle of the series. She was also supposed to be very stingy and easily get mad at people. Concept Gallery Parakelese_Shinobu_Art.png|Pararakelse art of Shinobu Shinobu Battle of Hinatasou Concept.png|Shinobu's Outfit from the Battle of Hinatasou Shinobu Concept.png|Early Concept Art of Shinobu LHAShinobuconcept.jpg LHAShinobuconcept2.jpg Gallery Lovehinancop001439.png Shinobu Maehara 19y.PNG|Shinobu with 19 years old. NaruShinobu1.jpg 274547.jpg 269546.jpg 320711.jpg Trivia *In the Manga (chapter 1), Naru says that Shinobu is 13 years old (despite she was only 12 at that time), but in Chapter 4, Keitaro says that Shinobu is in 9th grade, despite 9th graders are generally 14-15, so Shinobu should actually be in 7th grade at that time since she goes from 12 to 13 years old during that school year. *As noted in chapter 5, Shinobu’s height is 147cm, her BWH measurements are 68.52.72 Category:Characters